quotations about opportunity
Opportunity is coy, is swift, is gone, before the slow, the unobservant, the indolent, or the careless can seize her.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN
Architects of Fate
When one door closes, another opens. But we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL
The Electrical Workers' Journal, 1957
Opportunities are importunities; they are like flowers that fade at night; seize them, therefore, while they last.
G. S. BOWES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Our most significant opportunities will be found in times of greatest difficulty.
THOMAS S. MONSON
Pathways to Perfection
The man who sees an opportunity and does nothing is asleep with his eyes open.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVEN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Corrino
Danger will wink on opportunity.
JOHN MILTON
Comus
Opportunity to a statesman is as the just degree of heat to chemists; it perfects all the work.
SIR JOHN SUCKLING
attributed, Day's Collacon
Opportunity is one of those things that depend greatly on the eye of the beholder.
ANDREW SANCHEZ
Technical Support Essentials
Sometimes, you need a door slammed in your face before you can hear opportunity knock.
JAMES GEARY
Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists
To be a great man it is necessary to turn to account all opportunities.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
attributed, Day's Collacon
Bad chances were better than no chances.
STEPHEN KING
Under the Dome
It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready to take advantage of them.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
While we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Maxims
Opportunity knocks once at every man's door and then keeps on knocking.
GEORGE ADE
"The Undecided Bachelor", Knocking the Neighbors
To think and to will without doing, when there is opportunity, is like a flame enclosed in a vessel and goes out; also like seed cast upon the sand, which fails to grow, and so perishes with its power of germination.
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell
Oft does the mind wish for lost opportunities.
PETRONIUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Although opportunity is more definite than luck, and is apparently governed by more distinguishable laws, it cannot always be corralled and is at times elusive. It is an undeniable fact that equal opportunity does not present itself with apparent fairness; but it is also as positive a fact that opportunity is likely to come to those who seek it, and to avoid those who make no effort to meet it or to prepare themselves to entertain it when it does come.
NATHANIEL CLARK FOWLER
Getting a Start
Master of human destinies am I!
Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk: I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late
I knock unbidden once at every gate!
If sleeping, wake: if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire and conquer every foe
Save death: but those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore--
I answer not, and I return no more!
JOHN J. INGALLS
"Opportunity"
Our abilities and ambitions count for little, unless the door of opportunity is open to us.
NICIAS BALLARD COOKSEY
Helps to Happiness
Many people are waiting for opportunity to knock at the door, but when it does knock they are seldom ready to take advantage of it. No man or woman need wait on opportunity. We all have the innate potential power to create our own opportunities.
WALTER MATTHEWS
"Opportunity", Human Life from Many Angles